Rinker’ s Golf Tips June 8th Guest Jeff Hanson. Jeff grew up in Cheyenne, Wyoming and started playing golf with his dad when he was six or seven years old. His dad was a good player, and Jeff said the best tip he ever got was from his father about having a good time, don’t worry about mechanics, and have fun. Jeff learned a lot just watching his dad play and didn’t get any mechanical things down until he worked for Winston Howell, who had two daughters who played on the LPGA Tour. Later Jeff worked at Columbine for Lee Miller and got an even better understanding of the golf swing and how to help people by finding the one fault that could really help them. Fix somebody by focusing on their #1 fault and trying to get them better instead of giving them two, three, four, or even five things to work on, which puts a lot of stress on people’s games and they don’t get better. Sometimes it’s easy and people get better right away and sometimes it takes more time for the changes to result in better performance. Jeff said a lot of young teachers feel like they need to tell their students everything they know instead of a few simple things that can help them.
Jeff worked for two and a half years at Cherry Hills for a very distinguished PGA Professional named Clayton Cole. It’s a great club that has hosted many majors and the club is 100% about golf and supporting the golf professionals working there. I played in the 1985 PGA Championship at Cherry Hills and the BMW Championship will be there in September as part of the PGA Tour Playoffs and the race for the FedEx Cup. I asked Jeff what he has learned from working with the Trackman, that we now have at Red Sky, and he said that he is really understanding his path and club face angle at impact better. Jeff said his philosophy in teaching is to get his students to be aware of the club face, get a good grip, and learn how to square the club face consistently. Secondly he would work on their posture and set-up, and then work on delivering the club head on the correct path into the ball. Jeff Hanson can be reached at the Red Sky Golf Club at 970-754-8406 or www.redskygolfclub.com.